On Friday 27 November, Climateworks CEO Anna Skarbek spoke at a conference organised by Responsible Investment Association Australasia. She joined Jacki Johnson and Robynne Quiggin at a session chaired by Simon O’Connor entitled ‘A Bold Plan to Reshape Australia’s Financial System.

Discussing the necessity of decarbonisation in Australia, Anna Skarbek noted that research by Climateworks and others showed that technologies already existed to eliminate emissions from our economy. But that, she said, raised an obvious question: why wasn’t decarbonisation happening at the necessary speed?

She suggested that much hinged on successful business models.

‘Who gets paid?’ she asked. ‘Who gets charged? Where’s the customer? Where’s the revenue? That’s often the barrier. There are obviously some basic cost economics, and that’s why we have the federal technology investment roadmap that can help bring down the costs of some of the new technologies. But there are many [technologies] already invented and cost effective, but not easy to purchase. There’s not a one stop shop provider, or it’s not well understood or the upfront cost doesn’t include the operating and we don’t do a whole of life costing.

In the energy space in particular, but also in transport industry, housing and the built environment, these sorts of barriers to implementation can be resolved by the finance sector and businesses working together to assume that this is the new normal and these technologies are the default.’

Anna Skarbek

You can watch the full video below.